The Gambler
by AmicableAlien
Summary: Michael Gregson was a gambler. At cards, with life, in love.
1. Part One

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 **The Gambler—**

 **Part One**

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 _White's Gentleman's club,_

 _London, 1906_

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"Bring it in, gentlemen, please. All bets on the table."

"Michael, for God's sake.."

Michael Gregson ignored Adam's pleading whisper, his eyes fixed on the man opposite. There was a half-balloon of brandy by his elbow, untouched for the last hour. Next to it, the crystal ashtray was littlered with smouldering cigar stubs. The lights were dim, the room, despite the open windows, was stuffy and sickly with the mingling of a dozen different colognes.

There were seventy-five gleaming poker chips littered across the green baize table. Each chip was worth one hundred pounds. For some people, the stakes on that table respresented ten years' salary.

And that was before this round's bets had been placed.

Michael wanted to tap his fingers. Scratch his ear. Run his fingers through his disordered chestnut hair, ease the tightness of his white silk cravat. His blood was thrumming in his veins like a tribal war beat, like the clack-clack-clack of a tram hurtling down the London streets.

He confined himself to a smile and pushed his remaining chips out to the centre of the table.

"Mr Gregson, you're all in. Bets, gentlemen?"

"I'm out." A florid gentleman, his rich stomach straining against the white shirt-front, pushed away from the table. "Lady Jarrow will be sharpening her claws on my hide if I lose anymore. May I settle up with you tomorrow, Ackland?"

"Of course, Sir Cyprian." The petite man rubbed his thumb along the curl of his moustache. "Take all the time you need."

Michael bit back on the urge to snort and shake his head. Ackland was the eldest son of an old and doting banker. He spent more on starch for his shirt fronts each year than the chips on this table. He could afford to be generous.

"Michael!"

Ackland and the other player glanced up. A flicker of a sneer shadowed his face. "Your... ah, nursemaid is calling, Gregson?"

Now, Michael permitted himself to break the mask. Twisting in his chair, he swung an arm over the carved back and raised his eyebrows. Adam, he thought, observing the flushed cheeks and moist forehead of his old scribbler-in-arms, would make a terrible poker player.

Thank God, his flair for incisive and elegant prose was unparalleled.

" _Michael."_ In his stress, Adam's Glaswegian brogue cut through the received pronunciation he worked so hard to affect. "Christ man, yer bum's out the window on this. Have you nae idea what a lose could do to ye?"

Of course he did. Michael eyed the pretty tiles piled in a haphazard lumps on the green baize. One tile would feed, house and clothe him for six months with enough left over for a decent bottle of wine every month or so. Two would pay for Lizzy's treatment at Tooting Bec Asylum for a year. The money on the table was worth more than his childhood home four times over.

But it would take the full pile of those hundred-pound markers to persuade old Jessop Kingsley to sell Michael his floundering paper business. The vicious old goat had a banker's cash-safe where other men had hearts. Michael had worked for Kingsley for four years but the man would rather burn the whole business to the ground, office, press and contracts, than offer his old employee a discount in selling price.

If he was Adam, he would stand from the table. Take his winnings, ignore the sneers. He would probably treat himself to a hot meat pie while he made his way home on foot. Then tomorrow morning, he would take his mediocre gains and invest them in the nearest bank.

Sensible Adam.

Nobody, from his long-suffering parents to his own dearest Lizzy, had ever called Michael Alexander Gregson ' _sensible'._

Adam, my dear old chap." Shaking the restraining hand off his arm, Michael let his mask break into an indulgent smile. "Don't you see? That's exactly why I play."

Turning back to the table, Michael caught the glint of challenge in Ackland''s weaselly eyes. He plucked the last cigar stub from its smoulder in the tray and drew in a lungful of the fragrant smoke. It tasted as sweet as victory.

"Ackland, what do you say to double or quits?" He paused and felt the eyes of the room settle on their little table. The indulgent smile widened to a sharp, devilish grin.

"I'm feeling like a gambler tonight."

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 **I was rewatching the episode where there's the house party with the card-cheat and one thing that struck me was Michael Gregson's talent for cards. One was the skill he had with them and two, the calculated way he took the risk of losing a lot of money, just so he could figure out what was going on.**

 **Then, thinking over the rest of his storyline, he seemed a complete gambler at heart: shooting to marry the daughter of an earl (I know Richard Carlisle did too but he, at least, was a 'sir'), employing an unskilled aristocrat as a journalist, going to Germany (which was not, in 1922, the safest of countries- so he found out!) to get a divorce...**

 **Anyway, this quick series of drabbles popped out of that thoughts. I hope you enjoy!**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	2. Part Two

**The Gambler—**

 **Part Two**

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 _The_ Sketch _Magazine offices,_

 _London, 1920_

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"Pernicious nonsense!"

Michael leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his waistcoat. On the other side of his desk, Adam McLeod twitched his moustache in disgust. The bristled ends were close to smouldering as he scanned down through the clipping Michael had tossed to him the moment he stepped through the door.

Adam, Michael thought, was becoming a terrible old codger now he had tenure as the deputy editor of the _Sketch_. The grandfather moustache was an ill-advised cherry on top of the reactionary cake.

"The wee lass should have more care for her bairns an' her reputation than t'be writing such stuff to a national publication!"

"I thought it was rather well written."

"Ye _would_."

"She laid out her points well, cut back on the wordiness-"

"She reckons women should have the vote at eighteen! Like the lads!"

"-dash of humour to break up the argument, concise and restrained in her complaints-"

"Restrained? You call a bloody suffragette restrained?" Adam stared at his employer and long-time friend. "Do you no' remember when one of those numpties tried to letter-bomb this bloody office?"

"Yes, but they didn't succeed."

"Thank God, wouldn't ye say!"

"And it was in response to that god-awful diatribe you persuaded me to include on the benefits of constant procreation. Even Mildred took me to task for that one. Besides," Michael tapped the scrap of paper Adam had slammed down onto the polished wood. "She says she's not a suffragette."

Adam's momentary lapse into contrition at the mention of his wife was blasted away in a snort. "'Course she's a bleedy suffragette. A sensible woman wouldnae write such anarchist nonsense."

"I like her."

"As I said," Adam's brows lowered until bristle met bristle in a rough tuft of disgust. "Ye _would_."

"I like her writing."

"Amateurish." The professional sniffed. "Too many adjectives."

"Well, she hardly had an editor to point her in the right direction, did she?"

Michael unhooked his arms and pushed himself to his feet. In the cramped office, overstuffed with notes and scraps of paper, decorated with a dozen snippets from other publications and drafts of the sketches that gave his magazine its name, he prowled like a lion in his pride.

Outside, the hammer and clatter of a dozen typewriters vied with the screaming kettle. Reporters and editors catcalled to each other over untidy desks. The three telephone apparatus drilled a vocal hole in the dense wall of noise and fug of cheap cigarettes and ink.

Pushing, pushing. Always pushing. The _Sketch_ was built on this principle. Pushing deadlines to make a daily publication. Pushing standards to give their readers better editorials, better pictures, the most up-to-date news. Pushing boundaries.

More than once, Adam had stumbled into Michael's office, clutching the latest editorial or sketch or review and spluttered that this, _this,_ was one step too far. They would be censored. Worse, their advertisers would pull out, unwilling to ally their name with a magazine so incendiary or so unconventional.

Each time, Michael had merely tossed out his grin and the age-old defiance. "Publish and be damned, McLeod. Publish and be damned."

If it worked for the Duke of Wellington, one of the most famous self-made giants of the nineteenth century, Michael saw no reason that it should not work for a self-made man of the twentieth.

His mind drifted over those words as he turned from his post staring out at the chaos from the bevelled glass of his office door. His hands clasped behind his back, Michael grinned over at his old friend. For a moment, it was White's Club and a royal flush of diamonds all over again.

"Not to worry, Adam. You'll have your spot to put Lady Edith Crawley in her place over her adjectives." He reclasped his hands. His tells had become more obvious over the past few years. Reporters did not have eyes as sharp as card-sharks.

"I've offered her a weekly column. _The Modern Woman_ , her trials and tribulations. Birth, marriage and death and all the nitty-gritty details in between. With a political side-angle to exploit as she will. Won't that," He added, approving of the apopolectic tinge that had risen in his deputy editor's cheeks. "Be something to publish and be damned?"

A gambler might lose his sangfroid. But never, no matter the field, his taste for the wild-card risk.

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	3. Part Three

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 **The Gambler**

 **Part Three**

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 _The Criterion restaurant,_

 _London, 1922_

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"I've found out I can divorce Lizzy."

Here it came.

It was a wonder his voice remained steady. His fingers had fumbled the black tie so many times, he had nearly choked himself before he came to fetch her. He had been tempted to dive for the brandy decanter- much the same way Adam did when he discovered Michael's incredible, unpredictable and absolutely outrageous plan.

But he didn't want to come to her reeking of alcohol and slurring his words. In the ridiculous, school-boy idealism that dogged him from the first day he laid eyes on Lady Edith Crawley, Michael wanted to be serious, earnest and stone-cold sober when made his proposal.

Proposal. Hah. In defiance of his editorial brain, the word would not get out of his mouth. No other flew in to replace it. It was the driving thought that plagued him every day and night, every hour and minute.

Edith lifted her eyes from the delicate bowl of champagne. Confusion draw a faint line between her large, thick-lashed eyes. "What?"

"In Germany." Oh Lord, this was a bad idea. A terrible idea. "If I become a German citizen."

The line deepened.

If Michael could have thrown his cards on the table then and there, if he could have bolted from the room of tinkling china and soft-soled waiters, he would have done so in a heartbeat.

He had thought he could calculate the risk. At the outset, a fifty-percent chance. She had not shied from his earlier proposals. He had earned her father's approval. He had fighting odds, a few aces in his pocket to keep him in play.

But now, he felt like he was playing blind. And the stakes were higher than any amount of money.

Who would have guessed that the cold-blooded gambler had found the one opponent who could best him... and she didn't even know how to play 'Snap'?

"You're willing to become a German citizen..." Edith pronounced the words as one would say ' _fatal disease_ '. "... for me? You'd do that?"

"I would become an Eskimo if it meant I could marry you."

The words rushed out. Blurted, spewed, vomited. Now, just when he wanted to concentrate, the editorial brain kicked in. He couldn't focus on her face, he was focussing so much on keeping his mouth from tossing out a thousand different words to convince Edith of his sincerity.

Because, for the first time in a long, long time, Michael Alexander Gregson was utterly exposed. No tricks. No feints. No bombast or show-boating or playing to the crowd. All that mattered was this woman and the words that trembled, unsaid and unknown, on the tip of her soft lips.

"But... Germany. After four years of fighting, you'd join the most hated race in Europe for me?"

The smile slipped in and out, so delicate it was like a shadow. The diamond straps of her green dress glittered in the golden light. The hard gems made a contrast against her pale skin. The queen of diamonds, he thought. Queen of hearts.

She dipped her head. "Can I kiss you?"

The stakes were suddenly insurmountable. A pile so high, he couldn't see over the top of them. A prize so rich, he had to press his fist to his mouth to batten down the urge to grab and grab.

Michael swallowed. He glanced around the Criterion. It wasn't one of society's haunts, not like the Ritz or the Trocadero. All the same, there were enough people here to recognise him. Even more who would recognise Edith.

"What here?" His lips twitched. "Now? In front of all these people?"

She would fold. He was certain of it. Edith was brave and clever and so beautiful at times she broke his heart. Yet she cared for people and what they thought. Part of that made her a better journalist. It also made her shy away from controversy. She protected her family, smoothed their tribulations and cared for their opinions.

Kissing a man in the middle of a public restaurant was a step too far. Surely. It had to be.

A small smile curved up on her lips. His heart jumped, like a snap of electricity had shot through the muscle and vessels.

"I don't care." Her voice fell to a husky thrum. He could see the column of her throat vibrate with the motion, a buzz of movement that nothing could drag his eyes away from. "Kiss me."

"Now."

As he leaned in to the embrace, the sweet scent of champagne like honey on his lips, Michael knew that this last throw of the dice in his unpredictable life was the best and most certain gamble he had ever taken.

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 **And... the end!**

 **Hope you enjoyed this short drabble! Thank you for reading!**


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